Interesting what Steve Ozanich has to say in this interview about how symbolic events, like certain birthdays, can trigger a TMS pain episode. What Dr. Sarno says about the id being intolerant of its own mortality resonates throughout this discussion where Steve talks about a guy turning 70 and having such unbearable pain that he had to be taken to the hospital. I did notice myself that when I turned 60 was also when I had a TMS pain relapse after taking a fall on my left hip after tripping over a root while out running. Oddly enough, although I didn't think of it then, this was also when I had started a manic bout of exercising, riding hills on my road bike and running 8 miles a day while frantically trying to self-publish a new edition of my climber's guide. No coincidence I'd say! My 60th B-day obviously had a psycho-symbolic meaning for my psyche that was resulting in a bout of existential anxiety and internalized rage. TMS pain emerged as a way of distracting me from my own sense of mortality.
Something very interesting is that I had always thought that my fall was a pain "trigger" very much like a car impact that causes whip lash. Looking back at the event now five years later I realize that the reason I tripped was probably because I was already developing "drop foot" syndrome so my left foot didn't clear the root on the trail. In other words, my fall was only incidental to the onset of my TMS symptoms, which were already starting up before I tripped and fell on my left butt. My TMS relapse was already in progress before I took my fall. My mind just seized on the fall as a reason for letting my physical symptoms develop. My big mistake was returning to physical therapy which further reinforced the structural diagnosis, thus perpetuating the pain syndrome by making me think something was "wrong with my back".
You can see how the world of the unconscious mind is ruled by dark forces that are more akin to the symbolism of alchemy, numerology and astrology. I guess that's where TMS ties in with Jungian psychology. Watch out for those "bad" birthdays when the id has to face the facts of its own mortality!
